• I help people fully inhabit their bodies and guide teachers to do the same • Get access to exclusive videos, articles and teachings from Domini Anne
Head Space
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If Life is a Highway, We Need more Rest Areas. When times get tough, these are the words that get me through. Reminding me that every adventure, mishap, and white knuckle moment lived up until now has always had an ending. When we're in the thick of it, struggling to solve the insurmountable problem of the hour, it can feel like things may never return to "normal". Projecting that the current predicament might possibly be great material for a future story helps everything feel less dire. It compartmentalizes the chaos surrounding us as a moment in time, and reminds us that the reward for life's challenges is wisdom. Storytelling is an art as old as humanity itself. Although it serves the essential purpose of sharing information, a story can transform a hot mess into something with a beginning, middle, and end. Viewed in the past tense, our experiences become coherent narratives where we instinctively search for meaning. In retelling our stories, we transform raw, frightening moments into tales of perseverance and growth, casting ourselves as protagonists rather than victims of circumstance. This very human impulse to find order in chaos gives us a sense of agency – if we can't control what happens to us, we can at least control how we learn from it. But what happens when the story won't end? The first quarter of 2025 reads like several books thrown into a blender – wildfires ravaging Los Angeles while global powers circle each other like wary predators, all against the backdrop of our planet's accelerating fever. Traditional storytelling gives us the gift of conclusion – that precious moment after the climax where the dust settles and wisdom emerges from the wreckage. Yet 2025 keeps dealing fresh hands before we've finished playing the last ones, leaving us starring in concurrent plotlines of environmental drama, political tension, and natural disaster. Perhaps the answer lies in creating our own moments of pause. While we can't stop the news cycle, we can choose how we engage with it. Instead of drowning in the endless stream of global crises, I've started making intentional "action dates" with friends. Rather than meeting for coffee to discuss our anxieties, we get together to write, to exercise, to create. These moments won't solve the world's problems, but they give us the distance we need to process them. This deliberate separation from the world's chaos gives us space to find our inner stability and act from a place of balanced wisdom. Weight remains the same, but the stronger we are, the lighter it feels. Although the weight of the world weighs heavy, and existential dread lurks in the corners of our imagination, it’s all a little easier to manage when your body feels capable. Whatever problems you face, they’re better faced without the backdrop of neck pain and a tension headache. So take 15 minutes right now to focus all of your attention on your own body, and restore stability where your consciousness lives. In the afterword, he shared some powerful thoughts about worry and fear. “ We only fear something that has not yet happened. If that thing happens, then our fear shifts to what else might unfold. Worry is the fear we manufacture, and the correct response is to take action. Worry is a mental distraction that is not dissimilar to prayer, although most people would agree that prayer is a much more effective pastime that worrying". De Becker's insight perfectly captures why these intentional pauses – whether through exercise, meditation, or creative work – are so vital. They transform our anxious energy into concrete action, moving us from the paralysis of worry into the power of doing. As best you can Reader, try to transform your anxiety into action. Whether you take the time to actually implement the checklist you just saved on social media, or turn off the news and do a guided meditation, the pause you create gives you space to remember who you are beyond the chaos Domini Anne P.S. If you found this helpful, consider sharing it with someone who might need a rest stop on their highway today. Was this email forwarded to you? Join the mailing list HERE. |
Domini Anne
• I help people fully inhabit their bodies and guide teachers to do the same • Get access to exclusive videos, articles and teachings from Domini Anne
"Weezy, your shoelace is untied" "I KNOW, Mom" And Louisiana kept on walking. Striding towards our favorite Goodwill, nothing was going to distract her from her goal. But watching my daughter pull a move that I've done countless times (ignoring an untied shoelace while on a quest for urban adventure) allowed me a unique opportunity to witness its effect. I'd always taken the well-meaning alerts about an untied shoelace as either a subtle commentary on the sloppiness of my presentation or an...
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